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Book 11 - Charlemagne
These are the notes made prior to authoring Book 11 - Charlemagne. Some of these ideas made it into the final cut, but certainly not all of them. '' Pre-Publication Notes *Four years have passed since the events of Book 10. *Still badly damaged, Pegasus limps to the StarLock Charlemagne, and is surprised to find several New Commonwealth vessels there. *Admiral Spearing, Commander of StarLock Charlemagne offers to repair and re-arm Pegasus, but only if the ship places itself under New Commonwealth command (all other pathfinders have. Sets up a debate between Change (wants to join) Alkema and Kitaen (who want to remain independent.) Also, Change and Spearing have an attraction thing going on. *New Commonwealth uniforms are dull-looking body suits in shades of light and dark gray, with color only at the cuffs and collars to indicate which discipline a crewman belongs to. Keeler hates them. Alliance uniforms vary from world to world. *Charlemagne StarLock was also wiped clean, but on one of its walls was a mural depicting a star-map of the Sagittarius Sector, marking 407 inhabited star-systems. The positions of these star systems was correlated to account for 2,000 years of drift, and ships are exploring them. So far, every colony reach has been completely wiped clean of human life, as though the colonists suddenly disappeared but their inhabitations were left intact. The entire inner colonial sectors appear to have been wiped clean of human life and civilization. *The New Commonwealth has left Loki and set up its headquarters at StarLock Chapultepec. Loki is an autonomous colony of Sapphire, and a meeting place for the Free Worlds. New StarLocks are under construction near the Republic/Sapphire and Bountiful systems. *K527 is believed to be the first new, inhabitable planet discovered since the Commonwealth Era. The New Commonwealth maintains a training base there. *Lexington Keeler has been extensively refitted and is now known as Forward Command Base LXK, and serves as the Command Base for all New Commonwealth and Allied Forces in the Orion Arm. *Lear is an ambassador on the Lex Keeler, which has been substantially altered and rechristened Commonwealth Ambassador. She secured a treaty with the Lynx for cooperation against the Aurelians (Treaty of Bubastis). A Lynx named M’rawl is serving as Lex Keeler’s liaison officer. Although Lear takes credit for the treaty, it was probably more due to a two ship Explorer-Class Tactical Group saving Bubastis from Aurelian conquest. *After a series of attacks, the Aurelians have left the Perseus Quadrant and are regrouping in the Orion Quadrant. They have learned about a powerful technology created on Earth that enabled them to defeat the Tarmigans. They believe it will not only enable them to conquer the galaxy, but also give them immortality. *Lex Keeler has visited many worlds, including two Lynx worlds, Bubastis and Memnastis. Memnastis is home of the Memnia, a race of highly intelligent jellyfish. They also found a world called Tlek, home of the Teklekttetl, the insect hive race that tried to conquer Meridian. *''Commonwealth Ambassador has a crew of 10,000 representing all the worlds of the New Commonwealth. It doesn’t have a captain, but instead is commanded by an “Command Council” whose 10 leaders --- each from a different Commonwealth World in a rotating arrangement --- run the ship. (Needless to say, they are dithering and incompetent.) *A Free Worlds Ship from Wolf’s Head (The WHFAC Fighting Mongoose) arms and upgrades Pegasus’s systems. Upgraded inertial dampeners, gravity engines, and power systems enable Pegasus to reach transition speed in hours instead of days. A repair ship, specially designed by Sapphire’s Galactic Exploration Company is waiting to begin repairs. *Atlantic gets another shot at Brainiacsdaughter, but she is now twenty+ years older than him. She does have a hot daughter, though. He also discovers he terribly misunderstood the relationship between Rook and Brainiacsdaughter. *A Lynx ship also arms Pegasus. Master Lord M’Rawl wants to maintain debts with both the New Commonwealth and the Free Worlds. *A New Commonwealth ship, Alma 28:12 under Commander John Trawick, has found one of the twelve original colonies of Earth, a world called Parallax, and believes that clues there will lead to Earth. Lex Keeler travels through the starlock with Bill Keeler on board, as Pegasus is left behind for repairs. *The Lynx use quantum jump technology for interstellar travel. Sapphire investigated this technology centuries earlier but found it to be unpredictable (1 in 50 jumps results in the loss of a ship {the lynx have lowered this to 1 in 20,000} As someone describes it “Your ship pops out at the other end inside-out… and that’s just not healthy.”) and hyperspace navigation is faster and more reliable, although transition into hyperspace was discovered as an offshoot of the quantum jump experiments. New Mark IX Aves are equipped with emergency quantum jump engines that can get them out of a difficult spot. The Mark IV Aves on Pegasus will be retrofitted with the new engines. *The larger chips have QJ engines as well, but they require an extreme degree of processing power and the assistance of a Memnian to operate. They enable the fleet to jump vast distances. *Reena Decker is from the planet Rainier III. She is Matthew Driver’s Great Grandniece. She speaks in the literal, tactless, unsubtle manner of her planet. Trivia and Obscure References *The Three Parts of the Book are named for movies satirized on MST3K: - Beginning of the End - Space Mutiny - The Starfighters *The Dialog in Chapter 14 is an homage to the MST3k Movie Mutiny' *'Downworld' was named after an alternative dimension in the Canadian Kid-Scifi series 'The Odyssey.' Category:Books